Ending Child Labor in the Cotton Feilds

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) there are estimated 165 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 actively involved in child labor. Children are often forced to work long hours and are often forced to work in harsh and dangerous conditions. Child labor has a direct link to poverty, and provides a substantial barrier to a child’s education…thus enabling a barrier to a child’s education and increasing the literacy gap. Education is often taken for granted in developing nations, however many poor and impoverished families are forced to face the choose to send their child to school or work to help the family…it is that choice that has sent millions of children out of the classroom, often disparagingly girls, to toil in fields, factories, homes and the streets.

As Fall settles in children across the globe are back in school, participating in sports, and all the fun and learning that school has to offer.  However the reality is not the same in for millions of children in Uzbekistan.  Children as young as ten and all the way up through college in Uzbekistan right now. An estimated  1.5 to 2 million schoolchildren between the ages of 10-16 years-old have been forced to pick cotton each year from September-November.  However despite an international outcry it appears that little has changed for Uzbek children, as children continued to be pulled from the class rooms and forced to work in the countries cotton fields by the government (EurasiaNet).

This month the Uzbek-German Human Rights Forum issued reports of forced child labor usage in the harvest of this years cotton season in Uzbekistan, despite laws passed last year to end this practice.  Elena Urlaeva, from the BBC’s Uzbek Service, witnessed children being taken out of school to pick the cotton in guarded fields, after which Uraeva avoided authorities to interview some of the children, who”complained they had been picking cotton for four days, and their arms were scratched from the bushes. They did not have the right shoes suitable for field work, and were not given proper bags to hold the cotton.” (Eurasia-Net).

In January 2008 I reported on  A Call for a Boycott on Child Picked Uzbek Cotton, which had followed on the back of a piece, Child Picked Cotton…Central Asia’s Child Labor, run in November the previous year.  Following the heavy reporting and public outcry over the past few years more than 65 of the largest apparel brands and retailers have established policies regarding Uzbek cotton. Companies such as Tesco took a stand against the use of child labor in the cotton in their products, however historic the step was, it was in the overall scheme of the abuses in the cotton, and related sectors.  Now seeing little improvement in the cotton fields the spotlight has begun to fall on companies such as Gymboree and Abercombie and Fitch to stop the use of forced child labor to harvest Uzbek cotton! The International Labor Right Forum currently has a campaign against the two retailers, which you can join now here. The majority of cotton from Uzbekistan and other CIS countries is bought by Russia.

For more info on the campaign to end child labor and cotton visit Environmental Justice Foundation here.